Summary:. The power of doo-wop and The Google cannot be overestimated in crimefighting. Megamind and Bernard are afforded an opportunity for an overdue heart-to-heart. Absolutely silly one-shot.

Author's Notes: Totally, totally silly one-shot. Totally. Really. Just…totally. Spurred on by a few glasses of red wine and an ice storm outside, I blame the 1950's. I will regret this come morning. Oh, and some mild language.

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Doo-Wop

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The flickering images of two teenagers in love and dancing in the street enraptured the thirty or so people stuffed inside the small room. As the teenagers swore their undying love for one another, some audience members sighed romantically, others smiled sentimentally, and one particularly vocal member of the group rolled his eyes dramatically.

"The social problems of the 1950's could hardly be solved by dancing in the street. West Side Story is replete with socio-economic errors," he prattled to the sympathetic elderly woman sitting next to him. "It was only because the censors of that time wouldn't have allowed depiction of the realistic violence of that era into a feature production. Rebel Without a Cause came the closest and even then – "

"Can't you keep it down?" came the hiss of the irritated woman in front of him.

He scowled in the darkened room and sank down in his seat farther. "Some people have no interest in context," he commented sardonically, shaking his head. The old lady gave him a sweet smile, having inconspicuously turned off her heading aid twenty minutes before; she'd lived long enough to spot an insufferable pseudo-intellectual when she saw one.

Earlier in the year, the Metro City Public Library had begun having Movie Nights in one of the A/V rooms in the back of the library, if for no other reason than to justify the expensive theater equipment installed the previous winter at tax payer's expense. Every week, a classic movie was chosen and shown free of charge for whoever was interested or, as was often the case, for anyone who had nothing better to do that night.

Thus, Bernard Buddle rarely missed Movie Night.

"Oh look, yet another oversimplification of social strife," Bernard proclaimed sarcastically with an exasperated sigh. "Too bad mid-century screenwriters aren't in charge of the world. We could solve all of our problems by singing and synchronized dancing."

Tempting as this scenario might be, the woman in front of Bernard had now lost patience. She turned around and glared at him through narrowed eyes. "Look buddy, I need to watch this for my college film class. If I can't do that, I can't write the essay that's due in two days. If I can't do that, I'll fail the class. If I fail the class and have to retake it, I promise you on Marlon Brando's grave that I will find you, remove your left arm with a spoon and then beat you with the soggy end. Understand?"

"Talk about an overreaction!" Bernard countered in an ornery tone, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. "Haven't you ever heard of something called the internet?"

The woman then uttered what can only be described as a growl before her arms shot forward towards Bernard's throat.

Luckily, just at that moment, the south wall of the room exploded.

Moments before, with no consolation to those in the exploding room, our hero and heroine were also stuck in their own versions of personal hell.

"Turn it off! Oh GAWD turn it off! I feel madness descending upon me!" Megamind shrieked, clutching his aching head and running from one mechanical contraption to the other, indiscriminately smashing buttons and flipping switches, desperate for the horrific wailing echoing through the Lair's speakers to cease. Roxanne, who minutes before had finally just succumbed to periodic screams of terror, stood uselessly in the corner, eyes wide and petrified.

"Sh-boom, sh-boom! Ahdongeydingdong, ohwowowowowo!" the cacophony continued, unaffected by Megamind's desperate flailing.

"What dastardly villain has done this?" he cried frantically, bringing a sledgehammer down on a mechanism he had heretofore been extremely proud of, as it both rendered intruders catatonic and also made the most exquisite strawberry muffins on demand. "What genius of the mind has created this…this…sh-boom machine that will be the death of all of us?"

"It's much worse than a sh-boom machine!" Roxanne yelled above the terrifying harmony.

"Life could be a dream! Sh-boom! If I could take you up to paradise up above! Sh-boom!"

Roxanne shivered. "It's…it's doo wop!"

Suddenly, the music ended abruptly as Minion strode in, holding up his iPod triumphantly. "I found it!" he said, sounding relieved. "I've been looking all over for this, and here I just left it in the stereo system again! What a relief!"

"Minion! I demand an explanation for the doo-wop machine!"

"Sorry about that, sir," Minion replied sheepishly as he took it gently from his master. "Sometimes it gets stuck on one song, and just plays it over and over and over – "

"That was music?" Megamind started in disbelief. "Such weapons in the hands of the general populace, it is a wonder we are not all slaves of these electronic do-hickeys!"

Roxanne, who had been checking her schedule, email, text messaging her sister ("omg doo wop emergency wtf lol") and social networks on her cell phone, quickly stuck it in her pocket and smiled guiltily. Minion did the same. "Sure is!" they tittered nervously in unison, throwing each other a knowing glance.

"Now, back to choosing a color for curtains in the Lair. A frosted peach would be a pleasing contra – "

"Megamind!" a voice boomed suddenly from the computer, possibly the only piece of machinery not destroyed by Megamind's frenzied rampage moments earlier. Megamind, Roxanne, and Minion swiveled around to the monitor displaying a darkened figure dressed, oddly, as a worm. "The time has come!"

"Minion!" Megamind shouted, turning to his compatriot. "You have not updated the anti-virus software, and now look! A computer worm! How many times have I told you – "

"Silence! I demand silen – "

" – that computer security is of vital importance – "

"Hey! Hello!"

" – I could lose all of our vacation photos from Nebraska, not to mentionmy magnificent screensaver of dancing kittens with top hats – "

"I am not a computer virus!" the voice yelped from the screen. "I am real! I am sentient!"

"My God," Megamind said quietly, getting very near the screen. "Computer viruses have evolved to the point of being self-aware. You see if the Google is not responsible for this! I knew cloud computing would come to no good!"

"Dammit, listen to me!" the irate worm spouted on the screen. "I am trying to relay my reprehensible plan to consume all of the literature in the city, and you're only worried about lolcats and pictures of corn. Typical."

"Maybe we should just listen to him, Megs," Roxanne suggested gently, placing a hand on Megamind's shoulder.

"Very well," Megamind conceded, standing with hands on hips in front of the computer. "Speak, virus. What are your demands?"

The wormy figure puffed his chest importantly. "I am the Bookworm, and you might say that I have a taste for literature…literally, a taste!"

With a wicked whoop worthy of wrongdoing, the camera spun to show a smoking hole that had been blown into a room containing books. With a gasp, Roxanne recognized the outrageously outdated Encyclopedia Britannica collection of the Metro City Public Library on the screen. Small robots were eagerly grabbing books off the shelf, throwing them into a floating mechanism above them. The Bookworm laughed in a gravelly voice. "You see what they are doing, Megadweeb? They take the books, throw them in my patented Bookworm Reader, store the contents of the books, and then destroy them!"

"Why couldn't you just scan the books and then put them back on the shelves?" Minion piped up helpfully.

"Because I am evil, for heaven's sake!" Bookworm cried in a frustrated voice. "And I'm halfway through the authors starting with the letter H, so are you going to come down here and stop me, or what?"

"Oh, I suppose," Megamind cried, throwing his hands up in the air. "You just had to do this on the night there's a casserole already in the oh-ven, didn't you? Honestly! Evil geniuses are so impolite these days!"

"Let it be said, sir, you never intruded on anyone's dinnertime," Minion pointed out with a long, flat glance at Bookworm, who squirmed a little.

"Well, I apologize for that much," he said, looking a little shamefaced. "Next time I do this, perhaps I should check what your plans are first…"

"Well it would be nice," Megamind commented pointedly, flipping his cape behind him and moving towards the invisible car. "Some of us have dinner plans, thank you!"

Meanwhile, Bernard had heroically decided to save no one but himself and dove headfirst into the utility closet, shivering bravely by the mops and brooms. Seeing as how the literature-starved robots seemed intent on nothing but feeding the Bookworm Readers, the other audience members had left leisurely, some stopping to touch up makeup in the bathroom or grab a cookie from the table of snacks at the back. Bernard was now alone.

Megamind and Minion stood just outside the entrance to the library, conferring on a battle plan. "Minion, I want you to see if you can communicate with these…these…electro-mechanical stooges," he whispered as he set his gun to dehydration mode.

"The robots, sir?" Minion asked.

"Yes. Cut their power if you must, but we could really use mechanical maids at the Lair. Try to re-program them."

"Ms. Ritchi doesn't seem to much appreciate the…natural pungency of the Lair, does she, sir?"

"I keep telling her that it's the smell of justice, Minion, but she suffers under some delusion that the raccoon infestation has something to do with it."

"I'm on it, sir!"

Minion took off at such a quick pace that he didn't notice something falling out of his suit and clattering to the ground. Megamind grabbed it quickly; it was Minion's e-pod, the little devil that had given them such a start earlier in the evening. With an annoyed look, Megamind stuffed it in his belt and found Roxanne looking anxiously up at the library, arms across her chest protectively.

"You stay here, Roxie. I'll be out in no time," Megamind whispered confidently, trying his best to strike a heroic pose that he knew, from experience, set Roxanne's female hormonies reeling in a most rewarding way. She gave him a worried glance, then stole a quick kiss on his cheek.

"Careful in there, Megs. I'm right behind you."

"No, no. You never know. This might be dangerous. You stay – "

"I'm going in whether you like it or not. You find Bookworm. Twenty year old Encyclopedia Britannica or not, my taxes helped pay for those books and I'd like to see if I can save some of them."

Megamind gave her a swift kiss and grabbed her hand. "That's my little fiscal conservative! Now be honest. Do I look awesome?"

She smiled. "Always."

"On a scale of one to ten, exactly how sexy do I look right now? I'm going to say eight, but only because I didn't have time for eyeliner."

"Megs."

"Yes?"

"Let's stay focused."

"Right!"

Megamind and Roxanne stole into the library through the delivery entrance hand-in-hand. He gave her a quick once over and again was struck by what a lucky vigilante he was to have such an intelligent, brave, beautiful and nice-smelling partner in justice and in life. He squeezed her hand as they were about to part ways. "Just stay out of trouble," he warned her in a quiet voice.

"That goes double for you," she whispered back. They shared a short kiss before Megamind took off towards the rear of the library, following the sounds of paper being shredded. A door appeared ahead of him marked 'Media Room 1.'

He burst through the door and brandished his gun in what he hoped was a threatening manner.

"Libraries are sacred places of study and sanctuary!" he cried. "How dare you defile public spaces – what?"

He turned around several times, noticing for the first time that he was alone. Irritated, he shoved his gun back in the holster.

"Am I the only one making an effort here?" he shouted in exasperation to the empty space, poking his head through the hole in the wall and finding the room on the other side completely book-less. "Amateurs," he muttered, turning around just in time to see a dirty mop make contact with the side of his face. He fell on his side, and then immediately jumped up and began to do an agitated jig, flailing his hands above his head. "Ohgawdohgawdohgawd! Public restroom germs!" he yelled shrilly in a much more feminine voice than he would have liked.

"You!" a familiar voice shouted in surprise. Megamind stopped, mid-flail, to find the well-known face of his former persona staring back at him.

"B-Bernard?" Megamind stammered in shock, looking at the lithe man across from him still wielding the mop above his head.

"What are you doing here?" Bernard demanded in an ill-tempered voice.

"Saving the timeless words of countless bards. What are you doing here?"

A rumble above them made them both dive for cover on the opposite side of the room before half of the ceiling collapsed, sealing off the door to the room and the hole that had been blasted in the south wall. A small space remained where they both sat, breathing heavily.

"We're trapped!" Megamind was the first to proclaim, climbing to his feet and dusting himself off. "Damn these building built pre-handicapped exit code! Bureaucracy exists for a reason, you know!" he rallied pointlessly against the rubble before them. He slunk down against a particularly large section of collapsed ceiling. "And not so much as a Martha Stewart Living magazine to keep us company," he sighed, crossing his arms.

"What's going on out there? One minute I was about to die at the hands of an angry college student, and the next minute I was about to die in an explosion. This is not what I've come to expect from our public institutions," Bernard remarked in an annoyed voice, adjusting his glasses. "This has got to be the second worst day of my life," he said, shooting the alien across from him A Look.

"Oh come on! We offered you coffee and a ride home! What more did you want?" Megamind cried, throwing his hands up.

"I smelled like laundry detergent for a week afterwards."

"You could do a lot worse than to smell like spring mountain rain for a week."

"You blew up my job!"

"I rebuilt the museum, for cripes sake!"

"I missed all of my TV shows and my weekly meeting of Benevolent Elitists of Metro City!"

"Oh, cry me a river! I nearly became a very nasty stain in the middle of the street!"

"Oh yeah? Well, I racked up almost sixteen dollars worth of late fees from the video store!"

"Fine! Granted we both suffered greatly. But that's all over now and we have to find a way out of here. Roxanne and Minion might be in grave danger!"

(In reality, by that time Minion had re-programmed Bookworm's robots and was playing a fierce round of Texas Hold 'Em with them, while Roxanne had found a charming nineteenth century English drama novel and was curled up on the couch in the fiction section reading happily.)

"In grave, grave danger!" Megamind repeated, standing up and dusting himself off.

"If you're such a genius then why don't you use your gun to get us out of here?" Bernard demanded, pointing at the gun in Megamind's holster.

"I know! I'll use my gun to get us out of here!Thank heavens I'm such a genius!" Megamind crowed as he grabbed his gun and pointed it at the rubble in front of them. He fired and instead of dehydrating the messy pile of wires, concrete and Shakespeare in front of him, a little poof of streamers shot from his gun and fluttered harmlessly to the ground. Shocked, he took a closer look at his gun and bellowed in frustration, "Oh, that fish! Why did I let him talk me into creating an instant partytime gun?"

"You're not serious, are you?"

"As serious as I can be in the midst of such merriment," Megamind answered in a saddened voice, looking at the pile of party accoutrements at his feet. He sunk to his knees and shook his head. "Sometimes I think it's all just been luck that the city has stayed safe with me as its protector…"

"Well, obviously," Bernard scoffed. "When the worst supervillains this city sees are guys dressed up as worms doing something Google did five years ago then it doesn't take much skill to stop them, now does it?"

"I seem to recall some frightened nerd trouncing me with a dirty mop ten minutes ago when he thought I was the villain."

"At least this frightened nerd doesn't confuse a dehydration gun with an instant partytime gun when he's trying to stop a villain!"

"At least I don't still get my movies from a brick-and-mortar video store! And anyway, for your information, an instant partytime gun can be quite handy on certain occasions!"

"Yeah? Well, I can recite the entire periodic table of elements from memory!"

"Ha! I can extract strands of individual DNA and create a perfect clone in under forty-eight hours!"

"So? It's not like it's hard," Bernard retorted, rolling his eyes. "Singing all the words to 'It's the End of the World As We Know It' – that's hard!"

"You dare mock Megamind with REM songs from the late nineties? You are lucky that I brought the wrong gun!"

The rubble suddenly shifted and a strange form in silhouette rose above it, causing Megamind and Bernard to clutch each other and shriek.

"Finally! Geez, I call you here to do battle and here you are cowering in dorky clothes and without a stitch of makeup on!" Bookworm hollered over them.

Megamind jumped to his feet. "Don't speak to Bernard like that! He's not the one destroying public property! Here I am, Bookworm! Do your worst!"

Villain and hero stared at each other for a long moment before Bookworm shrugged slightly. "What are we supposed to do now?" he whispered to Megamind.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"This is my first big crime! What comes next?"

"What, really?" Megamind threw his hands up and sighed loudly. "Look, you reveal your sinister plan, we engage in witty banter, then you try to kill me and I try to bring you to justice! Have you not done your homework at all?"

"The Benevolent Elitist meeting was cancelled tonight, so I just thought I'd do this instead," Bookworm answered awkwardly. He looked over Megamind's shoulder and waved at Bernard. "Hey Bernard. How's it going?"

"Fine," Bernard answered flatly. "How're you, Frank?"

"Can't complain."

"Can we speed this up, please?" Megamind said testily. "My casserole is going to burn."

"Oh, right, right. Evil plan. Well, basically, I'm stealing all of the books so that I can – " Bookworm paused her for dramatic effect, " – upload them to the internet and sell them!"

"No! Such cunning genius!" Megamind burst. "To sell literature at an inflated price in programs that are only compatible with specific devices and are non-transferrable! And what's worse, you're violating copyright law by scanning books from a public library without their expressed written permission!"

In response, Bookworm burst into maniacal cackling.

Bernard scoffed again. "Frank, there's only like a million companies that have beat you to it."

Bookworm stopped. "What – r-really? Seriously? Son of a – ok, ok, let me think for a minute. Hm. Well, I suppose I could just kill you both!" With this, he whipped out a rather menacing looking gun and pointed it at Bernard and Megamind. "Don't want this night to be a total waste, after all!"

"Stop right there, Bookworm!" Megamind exploded, pulling a small device out of his holster and holding it in front of Bookworm threateningly. "You may have firepower in your favor – but I have the power of music!"

A powerful torrent of shrill music suddenly burst from Minion's why-pod in Megamind's grasp.

"Shoobeedowopwop – "

"No! Oh God!" Bookworm dropped the gun and slapped his hands to his ears.

"One fine day! You're going to want me for your girl!"

"Yes, Bookworm! Behold – the sinister power of the doo-wop!"

"Shoobeedobeedowopwop – "

"Resist its power, Bernard!" Megamind called in a pained voice, holding the music player as far away from himself as he could. "Just hold on! Don't give up!"

Bernard yawned behind him.

Bookworm had begun to writhe spastically on top of the pile of rubble, screaming in agony, barely audible above the shoobeedoo's and wopwop's. Minion came up from behind him and handcuffed him easily, then smiled at Megamind.

"You found it, sir! Thank goodness!"

With Bookworm subdued, Megamind turned to an equally important task. Using the butt of the instant partytime gun, he proceeded to smash the music pod of doom until all doobeedoo's had been beaten out of it, and all was silent in the library, like it damn well should be. Minion's face fell.

"Aw, sir. I had an entire last season of Lost on there that I hadn't watched yet."

"They're all dead and have been the whole time. There. That's the ending," Bernard said scornfully, finally standing up.

"Another inspiring ending to a dangerous escapade. Saved by doo-wop and the questionable business practices of the Google. Minion, you are writing down all the details of each case we work on for our eventual chronicle of crime-busting, correct?"

"Oh. Uh…yes sir," Minion chimed with a grin, crossing his fingers behind his back.

"There you are!" Roxanne called, climbing over the rubble to Megamind, who she kissed on the cheek. "Do you think if I left a note on the circulation desk with my library card number and the title of this book they could just check it out to my account…whenever this place opens again?" she asked, holding up the book she'd been reading while looking at the mess around them.

"Minion, take Bookworm to the police. Now that the library is – sort of – saved, we must go rescue our casserole from the clutches of our electric oh-ven." He turned to Bernard, looking at him steadily. "Well, Bernard, you showed great courage in the face of adversity this evening. And REM is ok. You know, not AC/DC good, but…okay." He sniffed a tab snobbishly. "We should hang out."

Bernard tried to appear equally as unaffected. "Yeah. Yeah, we should hang out."

"I don't suppose you'd like to come over this evening to partake in victory casserole?" He leaned into Bernard and whispered, as though imparting a great secret, "It's tuna, but don't tell Minion. He gets upset when we consume his oceanic brethren."

The criminal behind bars, new mechanical maids cleaning the Lair, and casserole thus saved, Roxanne, Megamind and Bernard dined at the Lair. Afterwards, Bernard showed Megamind his new cellphone, capable of taking small, grainy photos while Megamind showed Bernard his new particle accelerator capable of recreating the atmosphere of the universe's first seconds of existence. Both equally impressed at each other's contraptions, they then sat down to engage in what turned out to be a common interest: snarking on anyone or anything on television.

"Do you see her? You see her there? Don't you think her lips resemble a platypus'?" Megamind asked seriously, scrutinizing the television screen.

"Too busy watching this commercial for a toothpaste which will apparently, according to this ad, instantly turn you into an attractive, well-rounded adult. Who writes this stuff?" Bernard demanded.

"The same people who listen think REO Speedwagon is a good band!"

"Yes! Or KISS!"

"Don't knock KISS – "

"What, you're joking right?"

"Don't tell me you don't ever sing along to 'Detroit Rock City – '"

"Oh please! They're a JOKE! Look – "

Roxanne closed the door to the television den, turned up the radio to drown out Bernard and Megamind, and sauntered away into the Lair to find her library book.